Syria: the spectre of civil war

Syrians took to the streets last week, in an effort named by the opposition  'the ambassador expulsion week'. According to the local coordination committee, an opposition group that formed after the 15th of March events in Syria, sixteen people were killed. The scarcity of hospitals and medical staff contributed to the rising number of deaths. As stated in press reports, Syrians have protested in 250 places across the country, with Daraa being the most active, followed by Homs.

There is talk now of an armed revolution in Syria; this stems from the transformative nature of the resistance and the desire to irrevocably alter the power balance! It is naïve though to presume that an armed uprising will be successful in toppling a regime that is known for oppression and dominance. Shouldn't the leaders who call for the militarisation of the struggle know better than to fall into the trap set up by the regime and push people's protests into a violent vortex.

Violence will make it easy to isolate the protests and to justify continuous oppression and harassment. Resorting to violence will only satisfy the thirst of a few and it is the quickest route to defeat, and is more likely to lead to civil war. The high price we will pay will be giving up on coexistence, stability, and the condition of national unity.

The truth is that it is in the interest of those who have the say over security to divert the protests from the political and peaceful route to the violent factional one. Relying solely on excessive repression in order to incite instinctual actions fuels revenge and pushes people to adopt violent resistance methods. These people do not miss a chance to boost all backward forms of struggle, breeding fundamental forces, then linking it to Salafism and Al Qaeda with the sole purpose of legitimising oppressive practices.

Hope from below: composing the commons in Iceland

Never before has a ‘peacetime’ state constitution been drafted by an Assembly of ordinary citizens.  Never before has a constitution’s fundamental values framework been ‘crowd-sourced’.  Never before has a constitution been produced under the intense gaze of a population, scrutinising each draft as it is uploaded onto a website, watching meetings beamed live on the internet, with publics relaying feedback for improvement in real time.  Never before has so much been at stake in the peacetime re-drafting of a constitution in such circumstances, and never before have citizens had such a stake in the process of its creation.  Never again can the world be told by the custodians of the old that the people cannot be relied upon to write the contract between citizens and government, and write it well. ..


In January 2008, as the magnitude of the crisis was becoming apparent, a loneHörður Torfason began to sing protest songs outside the Icelandic parliament, day-in-day-out.  Persistently, insistently, during the dark days of the Icelandic wintertime, he struck a rhythm in harmony with mainstream, hitherto (on-the-whole) silent, opinion, and contributed to drawing-out the profound disharmony between the population at large and the corrosive politics that had ruled elite Icelandic affairs, particularly since around 1991.  Post-Soviet states have a term - ‘political technology’ - to refer to its similar widespread, intricate gaming of politics; Iceland has the less vast but similarly corrosive ‘Octopus’.  Those responsible for the crisis number little more than thirty.  But each weekend, as more and more people assembled outside parliament, the musician who would play protest songs became one among a multitude involved in the composition of a whole movement for change. 

For the first time in living memory, Icelanders assembled en masse, each Saturday, with ever more disregard for elites, ever-intensifying anger, and ever-solidifying determination to force those responsible for the present out of command of their collective future.  For the first time in post-independence history too, citizen discontent met elite dissatisfaction head on; the citizens whose day job was to occasionally perform as riot police, were commanded to restore ‘order’ by pepper spraying the protesters into retreat.  The ethical order that had proven its failure, and now, with the turn to violence, complete absence of authority, came under unprecedented popular pressure. The government was forced to resign.  The ‘Pots and Pans Revolution’, as it has become known in the media, is not a revolution strictly defined, but it did achieve the only government to be forced out by popular revolt owing directly to the ‘financial’ crisis (other governments such as Greece and Italy have been forced-out too, but overwhelmingly by finance industry pressures), and this in no small way contributed to the constitutional change of today that has inspired movements around the globe...

http://www.opendemocracy.net/richard-bater/hope-from-below-composing-commons-in-iceland

Rama's story revisited: Arshia Sattar

Sanskrit scholar Arshia Sattar's new book, “Lost Loves…”, sees Rama with all his human follies... No other character from Hindu mythology, perhaps, has been as enmeshed in modern Indian politics as Rama. While mystic poet Kabir once saw Rama as the ideal man who can't be tied down in idols or holy places, the controversy over the place of his birth threatened to rip apart the secular fabric of the country in the 1990s. More recently, A.K. Ramanujan's celebrated essay on the Ramayana was taken off the Delhi University syllabus under pressure from Right wing activists.

As a Sanskrit scholar and translator, Arshia Sattar has studied Rama through all these avatars. A Ph.D. from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, her translation of Valmiki Ramayana is an acclaimed work. Her recent book, “Lost Loves: Exploring Rama's Anguish”, looks at Rama as an angst-ridden character constantly torn between divinity and humanness. Wendy Doniger, well known Indologist, says that the book makes us see how deeply conflicted Rama is, and therefore, “what a valuable guide he provides for contemporary mortals like us, a far better model than a hero who knows he is a God and therefore can do no wrong.”

Excerpts from an interview with Arshia Sattar:
What compelled a feminist like you to psychoanalyse Rama's character?
It is an attempt to create a psychological landscape for a character that has become more and more opaque over the centuries either because he has been divinised or because he has been demonised. If you reject Rama and ignore him, you don't give him any emotional depth, he becomes flat and uni-dimensional. Equally so if he is a God. It's precisely as a feminist that I felt I had to examine Rama more closely — not to defend or justify some of his actions but to try and understand how and why he can act the way he does. We need to examine the characters and the ideas that trouble us as much as we need to examine the ideas that make us comfortable instead of simply going along with them. Our comforts and our discomforts need to explored, opened up, so that we can understand them and ourselves better.

Despite all efforts to “understand” Rama, is it not hard for a woman or a Dalit to come to terms with the character of Rama? Of course it's hard for many of us to come to terms with the idea of Rama. It's been hard for me to do that as well. I don't think “coming to terms with Rama” means liking him or approving of him or endorsing his actions. It means we've thought about what he is and what he does for ourselves, rather than slipping into received and unreconstructed perceptions about him.

What do you think is Rama's central tragic flaw? I'm not sure we can use this category here. It's rather too Shakespearean. Rama's tragedy is that he chooses the public over the personal, his role as a good king becomes supremely important to him. But it's this same choice, of giving up his love and personal happiness that makes him a hero to so many. There are many ways to read the character of Rama, many ways to understand exactly the same set of actions. Mine is just one among the many. And for me, the tragedy is that he is left so utterly alone at the end of Valmiki's story.

You make a distinction between Rama of the “middle books” and of Book 1 & Book 7 It's in Books 1 and 7 that Rama is most clearly god. The middle books are more ambivalent about this and that's what gives us the space to enter the story and ask questions about this man who would be king. Books 1 and 7 seem to attempt to iron out the contradictions and inconsistencies in the stories that have been told thus far. They answer the questions that we have as readers. As A.K. Ramanujan said, the epics grow around their own flaws. In that sense, they make the narratives richer and more complex and more diverse. Which is what we're having a hard time accepting these days. Source: http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/metroplus/article2674973.ece

Also see: http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.com/2011/10/valmiki-ramayana-book-of-wilderness.html

'Ugly Indians' clean up Bangalore

"Show us one Indian city that can boast of one kilometre of clean street - with no open garbage dumps, no missing footpath slabs, no urine stench, no paan (betel leaf) stains on walls? Bangalore, we challenge you, is the only Indian city that now has 4km of streets clean from these four civic ills."

The Bangaloreans in the Ugly Indians civic group have spent every week of the past year trawling the city's central business district with face masks, gloves, buckets, broomsticks and mops. Their mission is to "spot-fix" Bangalore, dirty street by dirty street, and has inspired the confidence to throw their "Ugliness Challenge" at other cities. They choose small stretches each week to clean: pavements piled up with plastic, defaced walls, footpaths rendered unusable by potholes.

'Spot-fixing'

The Ugly Indians are mostly professionals in the 25-40 age group and remain strictly anonymous - they respond to media queries only by email. The mission began a year ago to "understand the Indian mind and attitude towards cleanliness" and "outwit him/her with clever solutions". Read more: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15769402>

Protests in Peru halt Newmont gold mine project

US company Newmont which is planning a huge open-cast gold mine in northern Peru says it is halting construction after days of protests. At least 10 people were injured on Tuesday at the site in the high Andes. Critics say the $4.8bn (£3.1bn) mining project will cause pollution and destroy water supplies. The Denver-based mining giant has promised to resume dialogue with local residents and the government in an effort to reach a compromise.

Newmont, based in Denver, Colorado, is the majority owner of the Conga project, which was to begin production in 2015 and is an extension of Yanacocha, Latin America's biggest gold mine. "For the sake of re-establishing tranquillity and social peace in Cajamarca (region), it has been decided to suspend the project's activities," said a statement from the Yanacocha mine, operated by Newmont and its local partner Buenaventura.

The Conga project, located some 3,700 m (12,140 feet) above sea level, involves moving the water from four lakes high in the mountains into reservoirs the company would build.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15956429

Pak satire by Moni Mohsin

Bhai, I'mtauvery impress. With what? Haw, where've you been? In Greens Land? I'm impress with Imran's rally in Manto Park,baba, what else?Auf taubah, you should have been there. There was so much ofgaana bajaanaand so much of nice, nice talk that made me so proud to be Pakistani. I think so there were at least a crore of people there. And thanks God, lots of PLUs also - People Like Us. You knowkhaata peeta, English medium types who normally never come to rallies. I mean I went, Mulloo went, Baby went, Sunny went. Even Aunty Pussy and Mummy went - imagine, at their elderly ages! Imran's woken us up like an alarmed clock, you know, because we are so much disgusted with status coup and so much hungry for change.

But then it's not surprising we all of us went to his rally, because between you, me and the four walls, Imran is also a PLU, na. I mean, if you think about it, he and I have quite a lot in commons. Like me he also goes regularly to London, (he was there just now only, promoting himself and his book about himself, so goras will have to buy it na). He has a nice house in Isloo, I have one in Lahore, all my bestest friends are PLUs and all his jigri yaars are also PLUs. He says his prayers and keeps rozas and gives qurbani and so do I. He wears shulloo kurta here and trousers in London and so do I. He speaks Urdu and so do I. Only difference is, he reads Iqbal and I read nothing.

Itaucan't wait till he becomes Prime Minister. He will get all these crooked corrupt politicians to declare their ass its that they've slashed abroad. But not the Generals because they tau are our selfless guardians na. Not even Musharraf who lives in London and sits in Mark's Club all day puffing his cigar. He is also our guardian.

Read more at:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/diary-of-a-social-butterfly/1/159447.html

Ishrat Jehan case given to CBI by Gujarat High Court

A division bench of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari observed that the case should be considered as an "exceptional one which has national ramifications". After today's court direction, Mr Verma said, "The court has directed the chairman of SIT to file an FIR with CBI and that shall be the next responsibility we are going to discharge". This is the fourth Gujarat encounter case to be handed over to a central agency. The High Court Bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Abhilasha Kumari ruled out handing over further investigations to a state agency, saying that they had been discredited in an earlier report by the SIT. The report had alleged that the government was creating roadblocks in the investigations, the court said. The Bench said, "The agency to probe the case must instil confidence and should have credibility among the victims, therefore we find it fit not to assign the case to the state police". Read more at:

<http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ishrat-jehan-case-high-court-asks-cbi-to-take-over-probe-154273?pfrom=home-india&cp>


Relevant sections of the Judgment of the Gujarat High Court handing over investigation into the fake encounter & murder of Isharat Jehan and others to the CBI: 
62. In view of the aforesaid observations and discussion, the following directions:-
(a) Mr.R.R. Verma, Chairman of SIT (present) shall register another/fresh FIR on the basis of his final (8th) report to the effect that the alleged encounter is not found to be genuine and for causing death of the deceased and consequently for the alleged offences under IPC and other provisions of the relevant laws.
(b) The aforesaid FIR shall be filed by Mr.R.R. Verma, Chairman, SIT with the CBI, having jurisdiction for the crimes committed in Gujarat State, within a period of two weeks from the date of pronouncement of the order and the same shall be registered by the concerned officer of CBI.
(c) CBI shall thereafter take up the investigation at the earliest and shall make an attempt to complete the same at the earliest.
(d) CBI shall entrust the investigation to the team of its officers headed by an officer not below the rank of DIG. During the course of investigation, the said team of investigation shall be at liberty to take help/assistance of Mr.Satish Verma, IPS (1986 Batch, Gujarat Cadre), Member of the present SIT in order to get clues for investigation and further incidental aspects of the investigation. However, it is clarified that the final decision shall be of the CBI as referred to herein above.
(e) After the registration of FIR by the Chairman of SIT, the record of the investigation made by the SIT shall be handed over to CBI by the Chairman of SIT.
(f) After the registration of FIR and after handing over the entire record of SIT to CBI, appropriate report shall be submitted to this Court by the Chairman of SIT. It is only thereafter that the SIT shall stand dissolved.
(g) The State Government shall spare the service of Mr.Satish Verma as and when so desired or required by the CBI for helping the CBI to provide clues for further investigation or any other matter related thereto.
(h) Further investigation of C. R. No.8/2004 of Crime Branch Police Station shall be transferred to CBI, within one month after the registration of the FIR by CBI as directed herein above. The State Government shall issue appropriate orders/notification for such purpose. CBI thereafter shall file appropriate report based on conclusion of SIT as per its 8th Report in the concerned Court, but the full details and the relevant documents shall be produced only after investigation of the aforesaid another/fresh FIR is completed and appropriate Report is filed in the concerned Court for another/fresh FIR.
(i) It is also observed and directed that in the event during the course of investigation of the aforesaid another/fresh FIR or complaint vide C.R. No.8/2004 of Crime Branch Police Station, the CBI is required to take any action against any Member of SIT, the same shall not be taken without prior permission of this Court.
(j) All the record, reports and other material supplied by the SIT be sealed properly and be kept in safe custody of the Registrar General of this Court.

Also see: Ishrat Jehan case: The few good men upholding justice: A day after the Gujarat High Court accepted the SIT report stating in no uncertain terms that Ishrat Jehan - the 19-year-old student from Mumbra - was murdered by the men in uniform, a BJP worker aggressively defended the killing. The line of argument is clear - 'So what if Ishrat and three others were killed in a different spot and presented elsewhere and so what if the killing was staged? There were specific inputs from Central Intelligence Bureau. Were they not terrorists? Cops were only killing the bad guys. It is only the media that is making a big deal about it.' This foot soldier of the party only symbolised the malady that has now overwhelmed the party at the highest level in Gujarat. While at the national level, the BJP is raising the issue of whistleblowers being arrested, in their own backyard, they have a different yardstick for justice. Remorse and regret are remote in Gujarat's security establishment. The lid from this messy killing was first blown in 2009 by a metropolitan judge, S. P. Tamang, who was asked to carry out an inquiry into the alleged fake encounter. Unbiased, the judge did not hesitate calling this a cold-blooded murder in his over 200 pages-long handwritten report. The whistleblower was pilloried immediately.

The government spokesperson Jainarayan Vyas had even questioned the legal standing of the inquiry. An inquiry was ordered against Tamang, after the state government moved a petition in the high court seeking the scrapping of his report for being "illegal and doubtful." Subsequently, the high court constituted a three-member SIT to probe into the allegations of the killings being staged. One of the members of the team, Satish Verma, in January this year, came out with an affidavit stating that the alleged encounter was indeed murder.

The 1986-batch IPS officer's whistleblower act wasn't taken kindly by the state government and in its signature fashion, an old case pertaining to an RDX landing at Gosabara near Porbandar in 1993 was resurrected against him. During the course of his illustrious career, Verma is said to have slapped Yatin Ojha, an active BJP worker and advocate and arrested BJP MLA Shankar Chaudhary for rioting. Verma, along with his colleagues Atul Karwal and S. Zala, is facing allegations that he had let off Sattar Maulana, a key accused in the RDX case.

Verma moved the high court seeking redress and in his petition pointed out that the PIL, which was used to resurrect the case against him, was filed by Ojha in 2005 and even the state government had earlier accepted that the PIL was not really in public interest but was more of personal vengeance. Meanwhile, as the probe gathered momentum and the cops started feeling the heat, they moved the high court seeking the probe be transferred to the CBI, which the state government has been calling Congress Bureau of Investigation all along.

Satish Verma or Tamang are certainly not cases in isolation and stories have been written ad nauseum listing the officers who have been bearing the brunt in the state for exposing the unsavoury face of governance. As the Gujarat High Court on Monday accepted the SIT report, vindicating the whistleblowers, what now stares in the face of everyone is the duplicity of the BJP, which changes its stand as it moves from power to the opposition and vice versa. Read more at: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ishrat-jehan-fake-encounter-case-satish-verma-s.-p.-tamang/1/161812.html>


And: Punish the murderers in uniform
Besides the fact that the four had been killed by weapons of a calibre that the police did not possess, not one of the 70 rounds fired by the police in the alleged encounter was recovered. Worse, the police claimed that they shot out the left tyre of the car in which the four were travelling and it thereafter hit a divider on the right; actually, had they done so, it ought to have swerved left. Mr Tamang has determined that the four had actually been kidnapped on June 12 from Mumbai by a Gujarat police squad and brought to Ahmedabad and murdered, and their bodies were later taken to the spot of the alleged encounter. Even now, there is need for a more detailed inquiry as to how the Gujarat police was able to abduct people from another state and get away with it. Further, we need to know how Jehan and Shaikh were linked up to two possibly Pakistani nationals about whom not much seems to be known, except the police charge that they were Lashkar- e- Tayyeba militants from Jammu & Kashmir.


Former Home Secretary GK Pillai insists Jehan and Shaikh were working for the LeT, and were being used to provide cover to the militants whose mission was to kill Narendra Modi. The police also cite the fact that Jehan and Shaikh were initially hailed as martyrs on the LeT website and then the post was hastily taken off. It is difficult to take them at their word because of their many lies, not only in this, but other Modi and Gujarat linked cases. Even assuming that Jehan and Shaikh were LeT sleepers, they were, by no means, outside the pale of the Indian law. They were not even, as is alleged in the case of Sohrabuddin, well-known dangerous criminals who had to be shot at sight, rather than arrested.

There are many, including Modi in the Gujarat State Assembly elections of 2007, who have argued that Sohrabuddin was a criminal and 'deserved to die'. They conveniently overlook the murder of his wife, Kausar Bi. Needless to say, they see no irony in the fact that arrogating to yourself the right to kill, allegedly for a higher cause, is exactly the argument that terrorists give. It goes without saying that in any civilised country, the right to kill is one that is exclusively reserved for the state. While in war time, and through special legislation like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, it is delegated to its armed forces, in normal circumstances it is only exercised through the judiciary and that, too, through judicial due process. Here, as we have seen in India, it is exercised in the "rarest of rare" circumstances. 

Unfortunately, the Indian political system has tolerated extra-judicial killings and fake encounters for too long...

Read more at: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ishrat-jehan-fake-encounter-case-gujarat-cops/1/161316.html>